is perhaps slightly the faster of the two, but from the lower there
is a better view of Dynevor, and Dryslwyn Castle, and Abergwili, the
palace of the bishops of St. David’s. In Carmarthen itself there are
few relics left of a history that begins in the days of the Romans
and has been stormy to a most unusual degree; so stormy, indeed, that
one marvels the place exists at all. The wicked Vortigern, King of
Britain in the fifth century, is said to have built a castle here,
to defend himself against a too persistent saint who was trying,
quite in vain, to turn him from the many errors of his ways. He had
first taken refuge at Rhayader, but, says Nennius the historian, “St.
Germanus followed him with all the British clergy, and upon a rock
prayed for his sins during 40 days and 40 nights.” So the worried King
fled here to Carmarthen and built a castle in which to hide. But, says
the story, “the saint as usual followed him there and with his clergy
fasted and prayed ... and on the third night a fire fell suddenly
from heaven and totally burnt the castle.” How many times since then
Carmarthen has been burnt to the ground and besieged and plundered I
do not know, but one or other of these incidents is casually recorded
on nearly every page of the History of Wales. But Carmarthen, like
hope, “springs eternal.” Among the many who burnt it is Owen Glyndwr,
who at the very time that the foolish legend describes him as sitting
in a tree watching the Battle of Shrewsbury was really occupied,
not only in destroying this town, but also, as though influenced by
the reputed birthplace of Merlin, in having his fortune told by a
soothsayer brought from Gower for the purpose. But though this brave
fortune-teller prophesied evil things they were not fulfilled. Owen had
still many successes before him, and his dealings with this ill-fated
town of Carmarthen made a great sensation. There is an agitated letter
still existing which the Archdeacon of Hereford, the “lowly creature,”
as he signed himself, of Henry IV., wrote in “haste, great haste,” to
implore that King for help. “And note,” he adds in a postscript, “on
Friday last Kemerdyn town is taken and burnt, and the castle yielded
... and slain of the town of Kemerdyn more than L persons. Written in
right haste on Sunday; and I cry your mercy and put me in your high
grace that I write so shortly; for by my troth that I owe to you, it
is needful.” The exciting effect of Owen’s presence, we see, was of
somewhat wide radius. Yet even Owen could not suppress Carmarthen
for more than a short time. Leland tells us of two “reparations done
on the castel,” and in his day, he says, it was “veri fair and doble
waullid.” Even now there is some of it left, but unless we exceed the
speed-limit and refuse to pay the fine we shall probably not see it, as
it has been made into a prison.
But even the modern streets that have risen from so many ashes are
not without their own memories of the great. They were once lined
with shouting, excited crowds, gathered from all the country round
to see Nelson drive through the town: and through them passed the
strange funeral procession of Richard Steele, who was carried by night,
attended by twenty-five torch-bearers, to his grave in St. Peter’s
Church. Above it a modern brass has been placed of late years, but
for long the grave was, at his own dying request, left nameless. “I
shall be remembered by posterity,” he said. There are other monuments
worth seeing in St. Peter’s Church: the tomb of Sir Rhys ap Thomas, to
whose efforts Henry VII. owed much in his quest for the crown; and a
mural tablet of the seventeenth century, to “virtuous Anne, the lady
Vaughan,” who was, we learn, “the choice elixir of mortalitie.”
From Carmarthen we must certainly not neglect to visit Kidweli, ten
miles away near the sea, for there we shall find much of that visible
romance that has, by storm and stress, been battered out of the
county town. Kidweli once had walls, and three gates, and a priory of
Black Monks, as well as the castle that still stands above the river
Gwendraeth in all its imposing simplicity. The round towers and the
curtain-wall and the great gateway have a very distinctly Edwardian
character, but Caradoc of Llancarvan says there was a castle built
here quite at the end of the twelfth century by Rhys ap Griffith,
that great prince of South Wales who is known in Welsh history as The
Lord Rhys; and even in those destructive days a hundred years was a
short time for a castle to last. Probably Rhys built it and Edward
repaired it, giving it the special character of his own work, but not
entirely wiping out the work of Rhys. In this way we may account for
the name of Gwenllian’s Tower, for Rhys had a much-loved daughter
Gwenllian, “a woman of such incomparable beauty, and exceeding in all
feminine qualifications, that she was accounted the fairest and best
accomplished lady in all the country.” She had fine traditions behind
her, but they were not so much “feminine” as warlike; for her father
Rhys was “the protection of his country, the splendour of arms, the
arm of power,” and her great uncle was the valiant Owen Gwynedd, and
her grandmother was that gallant lady after whom she was doubtless
named, Gwenllian the wife of Griffith. It was quite near Kidweli that
this other Gwenllian died. In her husband’s absence she led his men
to battle against the Norman invader, Maurice de Londres, whose grave
we saw in his priory-church of Ewenny. Her forces were defeated, and
she herself, by order of de Londres, was beheaded there and then. Her
brother Owen Gwynedd, however, was still alive, and he saw to it that
the reckoning was heavy.
The road from Carmarthen to Tenby lies at first through rather dull
country, but after a time passes between extremely pretty wooded hills.
Presently we catch sight of the sea shining at the end of a deep
valley, and after this a delightful run on a downward gradient carries
us within sight of Tenby, the most charming of watering-places. Now,
it is not altogether an artificial classification if we divide the
civilised world into two parties: those who delight in watering-places
and those who flee from them. For this taste or distaste is really,
more or less, an indication of temperament, and at the end of half an
hour one could usually guess correctly in which of the two classes
to place a new acquaintance. But I really defy any one to dislike
Tenby. There is something endearing about it. From the roadside the
cliffs drop steeply to the sands below--very yellow sands sweeping
in long curves to the edge of a brilliantly green sea, while beyond
them the long headlands stretch one behind the other, mere blurs of
purple or misty blue. On the right the remnant of the castle stands
upon a rock, and below it there juts into the sea a picturesque little
pier, entirely for use, and innocent of pavilion or bandstand. Here
the innumerable trawlers take shelter, till in the early morning they
unfurl their crimson or brown sails, and one by one glide out into
the bay--a brave sight, and one that calls to mind the early name of
this place, Dynbych-y-Pysgod, the Little Town of Fish.
[Illustration: GOSCAP ROCK, TENBY.]
[Illustration: MANORBIER CASTLE, NEAR TENBY.]
There is something almost incongruous in the thought of the many sieges
that this quiet, sunny town has suffered. From very early days it
played an active part in the history of this strange English corner
of Wales, and if its walls and gateways are still standing to add to
its beauty, this is not for want of use, but because their uses were
so constant that they were kept in good order. Of the castle, indeed,
little enough remains: a ruined tower, an archway, and a fragment of
wall are all that is left on the rock that juts out so picturesquely
into the green sea.
But if the shrewd blows of several centuries have left us little of
Tenby Castle, it is far otherwise with the splendid walls and towers
of Manorbier, which stand close above the sea a few miles further
along the same coast. To see Manorbier at its best one should approach
it from the road called the Ridgeway, and this route, too, has the
advantage of commanding, here and there, some very lovely views of the
coast, of Lydstep and Caldey Island. It is well to know that on Sunday
no strangers are admitted within the gate of Manorbier.
It stands, as Leland says, betwixt two “hillettes, between the wich the
Severn Se gulfith in”--a fine setting for its battlemented walls and
towers, the “turrets and bulwarks” of which Giraldus proudly speaks.
That most delightful chronicler declares this to be the pleasantest
spot in Wales, and then half apologises for his enthusiasm over this
“his native soil, his genial territory.” We may forgive him for his
love of the place, even if we think he goes a little too far, for this
Gerald de Berri the Norman, who oddly enough has been known to all
who have come after him as Giraldus the Welshman, was born here at
Manorbier; and down there on the shore are the sands where he played as
a child, building, we are told, not castles, but always churches and
abbeys.
Strange enough this belligerent-looking building seems to have no
history. It has, apparently, led an entirely domestic life. We hear
of mills and ponds, of parks and dovecots in connection with it, but
of siege and bloodshed not a word. The great, grim walls and bastions,
however, must have added greatly to the peace and comfort of the Norman
barons who lived behind them, and they certainly add very much to our
pleasure.
Climbing again to the Ridgeway we turn to the left, with a view to
seeing Lamphey, Pembroke, and the Stack Rocks before, following in the
footsteps of many a pilgrim, we visit the shrine of St. David.
Lamphey Palace was for several centuries one of the dwellings of the
Bishop of St. David’s; and a good deal of it was built by Bishop
Gower, whose “mason’s mark,” so to speak, is the arcaded parapet so
conspicuous here and at his cathedral city. Bishop Gower seems to have
been the benefactor of this see, as Bishop Barlow was its evil genius.
It was owing to the latter that Lamphey passed to the Crown, and
thence to the house of Devereux; and so it came to pass that in this
sequestered corner Robert, Earl of Essex, passed the early years of
a life that was destined to be anything but sheltered, and played his
childish games with no thought of a capricious queen or of Tower Hill.
And with him, no doubt, played his sister Penelope, whom the pen of Sir
Philip Sidney has made more familiar to us as “Stella.”
From Lamphey two miles of level road will take us to Pembroke, and
to the castle that is perhaps the most impressive in all this land
of relics, where the castles are so strangely thick upon the ground.
The great walls rise upon a rock whose base is lapped by the waters
of Milford Haven; in the centre stands the mighty double keep, and
round it is a ring of bastions; on the town side is the entrance-gate,
flanked by massive towers. There is something peculiarly imposing
about this gateway, whose implacable strength seems all the more
uncompromising from its being unsoftened by ivy and very little
discoloured by time, though its fine effect is, of course, cruelly
marred by the lawn-tennis nets that seem so often to be regarded as
pleasing and appropriate additions to mediæval castles. Pembroke,
unlike Manorbier, is full of history; there has been no lack of sieges
here. Even before the building of this castle there were stirring
doings round this rock: fierce attacks and wily stratagems, not
unmixed, some say, with romance. There was a “slender fortress” here,
built by Arnulph de Montgomery of stakes and turf--a poor defence one
would have thought, but apparently sufficient to bear a good deal under
the guardianship of that “worthy and discreet” constable, Gerald de
Windsor, grandfather of our Giraldus. He showed his discretion on one
occasion, when the stakes and turf were besieged by the Welsh, and his
garrison was extremely short of food, by cutting up the last few beasts
that remained to them, and throwing the pieces to the enemy. In our day
this would be described, not as discretion, but as “bluff,” and it was
as successful as that quality so often is. It is said by some that it
was this same Gerald who built the existing castle, but there seems to
be a good deal of uncertainty on the subject; and even more uncertainty
as to which castle it was from which Gerald’s wife Nest, who was less
discreet, apparently, than her husband, was carried off by a Welsh
prince, not without encouragement from the lady. But when one hears
that the discreet Gerald escaped on this occasion by creeping down a
drain-pipe, one feels that there was some excuse after all for Nest.
But these are mere traditions. What is very certain is that one of the
stern entrance-towers was the birthplace of Henry VII., who lived here
with his mother through the early years of his life, and after his
exile in Brittany landed only a few miles away at Dale, where he won
the Welsh at once to his cause by unfurling the Red Dragon of Uther.
When Leland was here he was shown the room in which Henry was born, and
in it “a chymmeney new made with the armes and badges of King Henri the
VII.”; but this fireplace must have vanished long ago, for even the
local guide-books do not profess to know the room of Henry’s birth.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TOWER, PEMBROKE CASTLE.]
[Illustration: PEMBROKE COAST.]
There was a memorable siege of Pembroke in the Civil War--memorable
not only because of its importance, but because the leaders of the
Royalist garrison were renegade Roundheads. Cromwell’s guns were lying
useless in the sand, for the ship that carried them had run aground;
but undismayed he determined to starve the garrison out. “Here is a
very desperate enemy,” he wrote to Fairfax, “who being put out of all
hope of mercy, are resolved to endure to the uttermost extremity, being
very many of them gentlemen of quality and thoroughly resolved.” They
yielded at last, and “Drunken Colonel Payer,” as Carlyle calls the
renegade, “full of brandy and Presbyterian texts of Scripture,” being
indeed out of all hope of mercy, was shot at Covent Garden. Beyond
hope of mercy, too, was the traitor who, by betraying the source of
the castle’s water-supply to Cromwell, was the cause of the surrender.
Cromwell, with characteristic promptitude, cut the drain-pipes and
hanged his informant on the spot; and not many years ago some workmen
found the broken pipes, and close beside them some human bones.
About eight miles beyond Pembroke are the Stack Rocks. The road is
hilly and the gates across it are exasperatingly numerous; but these
are but small discomforts, and the reward is very great. It is almost
suddenly that one finds oneself on the very edge of the stupendous
cliffs that form the southern coast of Pembrokeshire--an edge that is
almost mathematically a right angle, so sheer is the drop, so level is
the plateau above. This stern, impregnable coast has the impressiveness
that extreme simplicity on a large scale always has: it has the
directness of Early Norman architecture. There is not an unnecessary
line, so to speak, not the least attempt at ornament; and the effect
is to take away one’s breath. A few yards from the cliff are the great
pillars known as the Stack Rocks, obviously separated from the mainland
by the patient efforts of the sea and air--examples of the survival of
the fittest. Their tall, gaunt outlines, and the sea-gulls that circle
round them, add much to this strange scene; but our real reward for
opening all those gates lies, not in the actual Stack Rocks themselves,
but in the long curves of the coast-line, the massive cliffs, the
green, transparent sea that swirls about their base.
It is necessary to pass through Pembroke on the return journey, but we
must leave it by the Carmarthen road, since to reach Haverfordwest we
have to avoid all the long ramifications of Milford Haven. Soon we turn
sharply to the left and enter the tiny village of Carew, where, close
beside the roadway, stands one of the finest Celtic crosses in Wales,
richly carved with one of those interlaced designs that the Welsh in
very early days copied from the Irish. And not very far away is another
of those splendid castles that were, to a Norman baron in Wales, among
the bare necessities of life--the half Norman, half Tudor castle of
Carew, or Caer-wy (the Fort on the Water), whence the pronunciation
_Carey_. The east front, the entrance-gate and bastions are, I believe,
the work of Gerard de Windsor, constable of Pembroke, and are plainly
Edwardian in character; but the north front, with its famous mullioned
windows, was added by Sir Rhys ap Thomas, the energetic supporter of
Henry VII., whose tomb we saw at Carmarthen; while the eastern side,
with the great banqueting-hall and the lovely arch that leads to it,
was contributed by Sir John Perrot, of Elizabethan days. This Sir
John Perrot was one of the worst of the Irish Lords Deputy, but it
was not on this account, very certainly, that he was suddenly called
away from his building operations at Carew and bestowed in the Tower
of London. The builders, delivered from his vigilant eye, did their
work so perfunctorily that it is now in a more dilapidated condition
than the sturdy defences of the Norman part of the castle.[12] But
perhaps the old splendour of Carew is represented and recalled best
of all by the beautiful rooms on the northern side, whose thresholds
have been trodden by so many mailed feet, so many dainty silken shoes;
for the hospitalities of Carew, at all events in the days of Sir Rhys
ap Thomas, were carried out on a large scale. Henry of Richmond, not
yet Henry of England, was entertained here on his way to Bosworth, and
mounted the stairs to the room that displays his arms upon a shield,
only a little time before he mounted the steps of the throne. This
last event was celebrated here in a magnificent pageant, a medley of
feasts and tournaments and sermons, at which a thousand guests filled
these weed-grown rooms with all the glitter and colour of an age that
loved fine clothes. Sir Rhys himself figured on the occasion in “a
fine gilt armour,” and was attended by “two hundred tall men in blewe
coats.” The banqueting-hall on the east side was not then in existence,
but there was nevertheless “a goodlie spaciouse roome richlie hanged
with clothe of arras and tapestrie” in which “the bettermost sort”
were entertained, a cross table being laid at one end for the King who
was so many miles away. And yet, in spite of these rash distinctions
among the guests, we are assured by the chronicler that “one thing is
noteworthy, that for the space of five dayes among a thousand people
there was not one quarrell, crosse word, or unkind looke that happened
betweene them.” It seems almost unnecessary that the bishop, before
they parted, should have “bestowed a sermon upon them.”
Fifteen miles of a hilly road lie between Carew and Haverfordwest,
a town that was important enough in Edward IV.’s day to be made a
separate county. It was the chief town and stronghold of the Flemish
colony, and the dominating position of the castle bears witness to its
former usefulness; while its present mission as a gaol does nothing to
detract from its grim appearance.
It was outside the embattled walls of Haverfordwest that Glyndwr first
met his French allies, who had landed in Milford Haven from their
hundred and forty ships. There were four or five thousand of them, very
gay in their apparel, very rich in their accoutrements, and here before
the hill of Haverfordwest they must have been an encouraging sight for
a man whose luck was beginning to turn. But this stern castle withstood
them, none the less, and though they burnt the town, they were obliged
to retire. In the Civil War the Royalist garrison adopted a simple plan
for saving themselves from the discomforts of a siege. Hearing that
the enemy was approaching, it seemed to them that the best way to avoid
unpleasantness would be to leave the place vacant, which they did with
all possible despatch.
[Illustration: CAREW CASTLE.]
[Illustration: ST. DAVID’S CATHEDRAL AND RUINS OF THE BISHOP’S PALACE.]
There are a good many things that we may think of in this town: those
“people brave and robust,” as Giraldus calls the Flemings whom Henry I.
established here; poor Richard II., who gave them their charter; Edward
IV., who gave them a high sheriff; the sieges of centuries; the gay
French army; but I, when I climb the steep streets of Haverfordwest,
long most of all to know the spot on which the Crusades were preached
to “a people well versed in commerce and woollen manufactories.”
“It appeared wonderful and miraculous,” says the historian, with no
consciousness that he is saying anything humorous, “that although
the archdeacon addressed them both in the Latin and French tongues,
those persons who understood neither of those languages were equally
affected, and flocked in great numbers to the cross.”
In the days when people journeyed to St. David’s for the good of their
souls it was considered that two pilgrimages to that shrine secured
as many spiritual advantages as one pilgrimage to Rome. It seems hard
that those who now approach St. David’s by train should not derive some
solid benefit of this kind, for the penance must really be very great,
since Haverfordwest is the nearest station, and the road between the
two places is known as “sixteen miles and seventeen hills.” One passes
these sad pilgrims, packed very closely in hired wagonettes behind
still sadder horses, and one hopes that good may accrue to their souls,
since surely this must be very bad for their bodies. Even bicyclists,
our brethren of the road, must find these seventeen hills no easy task.
The pilgrimage to St. David’s is pre-eminently one for motorists.
The surface, on the whole, is good, and near the coast the scenery
is fine. As the sea comes into sight on our left the rather dull,
flat landscape to the right is enlivened by the curiously sudden crag
on which stand the remains of Roche Castle, the birthplace of Lucy
Walters, the Duke of Monmouth’s mother. After a time the road dips
suddenly to the shore at Newgale, where the sands stretch for two miles
between low headlands, and where long ago the sea once receded and
showed the blackened stumps of a huge submerged forest. Between this
and St. David’s are “divers other little creekittes,” says Leland, who
has a passion for diminutives of an original kind; and of them all
none is so charming as little Solva where the narrow creek runs up
far into the land, and a picturesque village climbs the hill, and the
“fischerbotes” take refuge now as they did in the sixteenth century,
and probably long before it.